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While I think I'm pro-life, I also know there are too many "well, that might be okay" situations for me to really make that stance. I also think it's something that shouldn't be legislated.

However, speaking as someone who has wanted a child only to have it die in the womb, I know my baby was a life. I think most of us who have suffered that sort of grief wish folks who decide to abort would've made better decisions to start, except where all those "well, that might be okay" situations come in, of course.

I've volunteered to help patients cross the freaky fundy lines of pro-lifers who like to dress up as death and show girls photos of ghastly things to scare them from following through with their decision. Yes, people can and people do manage to scare the hell out of the younger girls who aren't prepared to deal with some guy dressed as death holding a picture of a dead and bleeding full-term baby who screams in their face that they are a murderer. It's a pity that noone pickets the pharmaceutical research

Whether or not she regarded that fetus as a life is completely irrelevant, she was 10.

Does that make the life in the womb any less valuable? It boggles my mind that we think our circumstances dictate the value of someone else's life.

I am not saying abortion is never OK. But it should be treated as a life, because, well, it is. Is it biologically an individual, human life: that is, a unique living organism of species homo sapiens? Of course, no question there. The question is when it is "human", and we can't even agree on what that means. I think it means a soul connected to a body. Do I know when then that happens? Nope. That means the only logical course of action is to err on the side of not killing the life.

There are also an awful lot of women who are married and have a few kids already who get a safe and legal abortion these days. Their reasons and their way of coping are all very different and, no doubt, many of them do think it's a life, but there are many other things they consider in the decision.

Yes, there are, and rarely ever are they relevant enough to justify taking a human life. It is almost always done for the sake of convenience. It's callous and despicable.

A government which executes prisoners yet opposes abortion doesn't make a lot of sense in the whole 'sanctity of life' bit.

I don't favor capital punishment in general, but it's extraordinarily specious to compare destroying an innocent life to destroying a guilty one. But that's not much more of an unreasobable leap than saying "I already have kids so I might as well kill this one," I guess.

That means the only logical course of action is to err on the side of not killing the life.

You had me and then you lost me.

I agree with just about everything you've said, that the key to the whole question is "when does it become human, and thus subject to governmental protection." However, I'm not sure that the default of gov't should be to save life. I value freedom pretty highly, too.

agree with just about everything you've said, that the key to the whole question is "when does it become human, and thus subject to governmental protection." However, I'm not sure that the default of gov't should be to save life. I value freedom pretty highly, too.

Including the freedom to live, of the life in question? In order to put the woman's freedom above the freedom of the life in the womb (we know it is a life; that's a given: the question is what the nature of that life is), we must either a. say

What does a soul look like? Is it detectable via some sort of apparatus you have handy?

If you wish to be sarcastic, and wish me to respond, choose a different discussion. If you wish to belittle my beliefs, you'd be better off to not act on it. If you have an actual point or question in there, consider restating it to make sense.

For the record, plenty of executed people were innocent.

Yes, of course.

So the comparison is between destroying an innocent fetus and destroying a possibly innocent adult.

If you wish to be sarcastic, and wish me to respond, choose a different discussion. If you wish to belittle my beliefs, you'd be better off to not act on it. If you have an actual point or question in there, consider restating it to make sense.

Point taken. I'm curious what your conception of a soul is, and how you came to it. It seems to me that the notion of a soul is actually directly connected to the "when does a fetus have person status" question.

I came to it after years of observation, study, and reflection. Simply put, this dual nature of man is inherent to the Christian worldview, though it is much more complex than that simple phrasing.

And yes, this notion of the soul is somewhat related to the question, depending on the individual asking or answering it. It seems to me that if you don't believe in a metaphysical self, that the self is purely biological, then the question is even easier: as soon as it is a distinct, living, being, then it is

Could you give a pointer to some way that one could do such observation? I'm sincerely curious about this. I try very hard to maintain a careful, rational approach to understanding reality. If there's something to the notion of a soul, I'd like to know what it is. I just haven't personally encountered any information that would lead me to think that spirituality or metaphysics are useful. So in the meantime I'm focusing on trying to fix t

Could you give a pointer to some way that one could do such observation?

I don't think I could. I'll think on it, and if I think of something, I'll let you know. I'm busy and I can't concentrate enough to give a reasonable answer. However, perhaps it suffices to say that empirical observation alone is insufficient, to my mind. It was not observation, but observation, study, and reflection, and it was in the study that the observations became interesting. I wouldn't start with observation, but with stu